Living the Live in the tradition of Advaita Vedanta

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Month: March 2013

Purification is an important part of a the journey to uncover ‘ yourself ‘ . A few weeks ago I used that quote on my twitter-account. A question I got invited me instantly to describe what I mean by this process. Please don’t turn your Life into Hell just because you want to whip yourself. The more pain and suffering you seek, the closer you will get towards Heaven. This has nothing to do with Purification. It is just pure masochism.

Q: Does Purification mean that you need to withstand suffering to be able to get self-realisation?

A: Purification, YES. Suffering, NO

Q: A few years ago I lost my husband due to a long-lasting illness. Although it is still not easy to bear this, it has made me stronger. At first my feelings were peaking up and down like a rollercoaster. All I could do is watching how pain took control over me. Now time is doing its work and I feel purified. I guess now I know what you mean with purification.

Castle Island. (Photo credit: B4bees)

A: I know your story and I agree you went through a time of pain. Just like a long dark winter is letting you forget how warm the sun can be, you forgot for a while how full of joy and pleasure Life also can show itself.

You were shocked by a life-event that let you feel deep and dark emotions full of isolation and dispar. Now you notice the emotions come to rest and you feel purified. yes I can agree that this was a process of purification.

Q: But I suffered a lot as well. So?

A: Lets go back to Identification. Consciousness needs the manifest to know itself and is therefore one and the same. Consciousness creates itself into manifestation, over and over. So your body, the body, is consciousness in manifestation. It is like the lamp looking into its own light. Soon enough the lamp wants to protect itself against the objects it is making alive by shining its own light on it. This is the circle of manifestation. This is you, the idea of a non-existing person into a non-existing world. And as long as you take this stand, suffering will be the main course of your daily routine.

Q: Main course?

A: Yes, because living the life of a separated person, safeguarded in your self made castle, with a world of objects on the outskirts, is THE invitation to an army of invaders to knock on your protection. Sometimes the enemy takes a break, giving you a nice and welcome relief, but all the time they are waiting in front of the gates, ready to take over your city. Now meet the people who are knocked down by Life. Their parents, ex-husbands, government, environment, work, even their children, all are part of the army invading their protected cities.

Q: I understand your talks, but it is so hard to realise who I am during direct emotional times.

A: This is so true, and I don’t urge anyone to avoid pain, on the contrary. When pain knocks on your door, it is there and not to avoid. I can assure you when one of my beloved ones suffers or even passes away, I will cry without hesitation. Emotions are direct in connection with the body. ruling its own world of pleasures and pains. But, I don’t suffer!

Heaven (Photo credit: adyyflickr)

Purification is inviting you to meet the enemy inside your castle. In fact they are not your enemy at all. They invite you to feel their presence with an intensity you never have felt before. The pain is so true, so alive, so real, that it wipes out everything else for a while. Now that you have invited them into your castle you start to meet them as good companion, it enriches your life. When this is fully realised, a next time you will even have no defenses set; the gates to your castle will be open. Walls will be no longer in need. I am very glad for you.

That you still miss your husband is very natural. It is part of this manifest, this bodily experience. As long as the body is there, all bodily experiences will remain. When Life knocks on your door, invite it immediately. Without hesitation. Too bad most people are just building up their walls, but they will never be strong enough to keep Life out of it. One day they take over your city leaving you with a feeling of suppression, or you just invite Life as your friend. This is purification.

With the best motivation, love and understanding you sit in front of your teacher. Now the moment is there to find out everything on who YOU are. Open and fresh, nothing to lose. Or better said, most willingly to give up everything and all. Rather sooner or later your head will become a mumbo-jumbo of Idea’s, Thoughts, Concepts. And exactly this is the brick wall holding you back from everything to know.

Q: I have given up desires like building a career to make money, because I want to spend all of my time on my spiritual search for true knowledge . Lately I really got confused, because you told us: just follow your Heart’s desires, even when this is making money. Did I make the wrong choices? What can I do?

A: You sit here voluntarily. You can go whenever you want to go.

Q: No, this is where I want to be. There is hardly any single moment I am not busy with the subject ‘ who am I ‘. At the other hand I am considering taking classes to become a teacher. It will need hours of study and attention next to my current job. I even would have less time to visit you?

A: I have to send you home. Pick up your studies and become a wonderful teacher.

Q: Really? I don’t want to go. This is where I want to be!

Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine

A: It is you who puts up the question? Should I go for my career, or a spiritual Life? I never urged you to favor one of the other? I never asked you to drop your career? Are you insane? You are a very intelligent social person; you would do it very well working with children. And what is wrong with having a bit more money? All the exiting things you could do or buy?

Q: I can’t. The world and his material matters seem so the opposite of my spiritual interests. I am really, really very confused.

A: What is there for you in this being with me?

Q: I feel released, at peace. It all becomes so silent. No thoughts. I love it. And still when I return to my world of work….it is…, challenge and competition. Really it all feels so hard to live with. What to do?

A: Give up all concepts on a so-called spiritual life

Q: I did!

A: No, than you would enjoy becoming a teacher. No matter what. You made the separation. Why? You still try to seek a safety spot. A place to hide. Like you had one as a child. A place in the house, your garden or the neighbourhood. You even kept some ‘ secret ‘ stuff there. Nobody else would know about your very own hide-away. Now you do the same with your so-called ‘spiritual’ life.

Teacher in primary school in northern Laos (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Try to find out how ” spiritual” concepts made changes to your life. Have you become a vegetarian, an environmentalist, anti-globalist, eating just whole-food. A bit like the parents from Dharma in’ Dharma and Greg ‘. They live in their own self-created spiritual world. This is what you have done already by questioning Life. Your Life.

For selfrealisation I exclude nothing. What I mean is: don’t invite parts of a new life-style because it makes the world, your life acceptable. Just do what your Heart is telling you to do. And when this is making the word ‘ a better place ‘ according to your standards; So be it. But not as part of a spiritual world. There is no such thing! Really. Again, don’t make any concept. Your body is the concept, the world is a concept. There is no escape. Just watch and enjoy. No boundaries.

Being is all about Loving. Don’t bother yourself too much with Thoughts about how to realise yourself. In the end you will just Love and Live anyway

Q: When I look around, just watch, just observe, I realise I am here and now. This is it. Still there is another part of me that is watching the I that knows. It looks like I have divided myself into two pieces.

Love tree (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

A: Put two mirrors in front of each other. Take a spot in between, and you will see reflections of yourself till the end of days. There comes no end to it. So you can create as many I’s as you want. And in fact you do. In the end it is just more Idea’s piled up onto the rumble of Idea’s any how.

Q: So what is giving me the perspective of a greater observer that is observing my awareness?

A: The fact that there is still a you around building perspectives on Idea’s about he essence of you!

Q: Still I can’t get rid of this me making all the idea’s

A: And this is the Heart of the Illusion: the Idea of a separated you, living in a body, observing the world around yourself as all separate objects.

This manifestation of the body is brilliant when it comes to the quest of ‘who am I’ . It gives a sense of space and time continuum. It is your self-created playground. And now a drop, part of the ocean is trying to get rid of itself to become the ocean once again. The body is perhaps the biggest Idea brought into full manifestation.

And now with that body, you, in fact an Idea itself, start to make Idea’s to declare itself bankrupt to be become what it already was and is: the source of all Idea’s brought into manifestation.

Difficult to understand? Don’t make Idea’s. Just invite this statement with gentle care.

Q: When you die the body disappears

Observation Rock and Echo Rock (Photo credit: brewbooks)

A: But will the one observing the observer, disappear with the death of the body?

Q: I don’t know. Somehow I am convinced I still will be around with or without form.

A: See what you do! Still you try to survive after the death of the body. There must remain something?

Can’t you see that the whole idea of for instance a Soul that survives death, after wich it then get prepared for the next manifestation, is giving you comfort? You are not even willing to give up yourself in this live! YOU as consciousness itself will be around eternal, but the Linda* that you are now, will not be there as it is already just here as Idea projected into form! Understand this part very well!

Q: So this Awareness. Will it always be there?

Love Love Love (Photo credit: Gregory Jordan)

A: Awareness itself will always be there. It is one and the same as consciousness itself. Consciousness is also one and the same as the Manifest itself. Awareness, Consciousness, Manifest, these are all one and the same, undivided. Consciousness takes the shape of milions of forms, endless. Even as a so-called you, occupying a body, seeking for itself. And this seeking you. Well, that is in fact all there is. Existence is very kind to you. Just take it in slowly, with care.

Q: It is hard to get

A: It is also hard to explain. For all don’t try to give up your ego, because there is no such thing. Don’t try to get rid of Thought, because the body is created as Thought into Form. Just let it be, just let it happen.

I know you feel urged to get answers. I have been there myself. It is like explaining to be in love to a young child that never has been in love before. One day you realise you are in Love, than you will know immediately. Let it happen.